Pages

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: (Almost) Live Blog

I'm going to Harry Potter Land (totally not it's actual name) next week, and I have not seen the films. To me, this seems like a problem, and one I'm going to remedy starting tonight by watching The Philosopher's Stone- a film I have seen a couple of times, and which I pretty much ate. So this is going to be fun!

So. FIRSTLY there will be Harry Potter spoilers. So go away now if you've somehow missed out on this cultural phenomenon. Secondly! It's an almost live blog cause I just going to record all my thoughts here and post it once the film's done because the other way is effort. To be clear- this is the only way I'm going to get through the films without killing things. Hold on to me, internet.

21:18- Ah good, it's starting. *tries not to relive bitter 12 year old experience* *fails* That's still bloody good music though.

21:21- "I would trust Hagrid with my life." Awwwwww, yay!

21:22- You don't maybe want to put baby Harry in a basket? Something he won't be able to crawl away from really easily? Nope? Ok then.

21:26- Wow, Dudley's a really terrible actor. BLOODY KIDS.

21:29- Why is Uncle Vernon so anti-Harry going to Hogwarts though? Gets him away from them, and it's surely difficult to deny magic exists when there are zillions of letters zipping down your chimney!

21:33- Ughhhhh, line delivery. So so so bad. WHY CAN'T CHILDREN ACT?!

21:38- KESTER! I mean, Quirrell! We know all about HIM, of course. *knowing face*

21:41- There's no safer place than Gringotts to keep stuff except Hogwarts, huh? That could be important...

21:44- Olivander seems very much like a man who should not be left alone with children.

21:49- A lot of the soundtrack seems fairly unnecessary. Maybe because there's NO SOUNDTRACK IN THE BOOKS.

13 comments:

I have a friend with almost the exact same accent as Emma Watson. My dad's accent is quite similar as well, actually. But yeah, they could have mixed it up a bit with the accents, rather than making only giving the "stupid" character a Northern accent. As a Northerner (albeit one with only a slight hint of a northern accent) I am offended!

Ummm, sweets, if by 'Harry Potter world' you mean the studio tour, you do know it's ALL ABOUT THE FILMS, right? And there are rabid fans in there who own every single piece of Potter merchandise including a lanyard with their house on it JUST BECAUSE, and have spent £400 on robes and a full Hogwarts uniform, and you might get killed if you say you hate them? Also I'm fairly sure that some of the points you didn't like about the movie were also in the book. Also the kids were TEN YEARS OLD and definitely get better. Admittedly Harry's animated moment was a bit obvious, but dude, have you SEEN Legolas in pretty much every Tolkien movie so far? There's ALWAYS an obvious animated stunt in there somewhere. I thought it was quite funny. :P

Breathe, Laura. Focus on the combined talents of Rickman and Hart and Smith and Harris and Griffiths and remember, they totally wouldn't be there if this wasn't a film worth watching. :)

I do know that the studio tour is all about the films, hence the actually watching them lol! I have resisted going there for ages because of my apathy towards the films, but then everyone was going and it looked kind of awesome so now, the films. BUT DAMMIT I'M GOING TO SNARK ABOUT THEM!! :D

Some of the things I didn't like were DEFINITELY in the book. Some of the things I did like weren't in the book (Quirrell's face). I still don't really like the first film, it has to be said, but at least I watched it. Again. Foolishly. Hahaha.

I need to watch the last two films still, but I don't want to because THAT IS WHERE ALL THE DEATH HAPPENS and I know I'll be a mess. But I do need to watch them before we finally go to the studio. If we ever go. We were meant to go months - January? Mid February? - but we had to switch our tickets to gift tickets for some unknown future date because HELLO DEPRESSION. Mostly I'm going because I want to see the castle model at the end and then buy a chocolate frog. :)

Yeah, I totally fancied Quirrell in this first one too. Until he took the turban off, then I was like "... actually, maybe not."

I loved reading this! The first movie was rubbish, to borrow a British phrase. So was the second one, come to that. They only got good with PoA.

"22:09- I would like to take Alan Rickman's potions class. Oh yes. Mmmmmhmmm." <--- This.

"22:13- "Mount it. And grip it tight. You don't want to be sliding off the end." OOER I thought this was a children's film." <---- I don't think this particular part was pointed out during our epic readathon, so is it just in the film, then? Not in the books?

It's funny to me how the first two films tried to be so true to the book plots that they actually lacked any magic at all. Whereas starting with Cuaron and movie #3, the directors started taking more liberties with the books and they turned out to be SO MUCH BETTER. Also, maybe by that time they were figuring out that the movies weren't just for children, so we didn't need all of those moments where the camera is lingering on the trio's faces for awkward lenghts of time, etc .

I don't remember the flying bit being so dirty in the book... So it probably wasn't! I felt like that scene WAS fairly accurate though.

I was literally thinking last night that if the film hadn't been so like 'this is what happens in the book and in this order and I must get it perfectly right', and had been more CINEMATIC like, I don't know, a film, then it would have been much better. Not that it's an unpopular opinion that Chris Columbus did a bad job, I understand.